The mysterious bubble puzzle is solved...

I'm not keen on murder mysteries. I don't mind the mystery part, it's the murder I dislike. I would kill to have a murder mystery without the murder component in fact. Then we could call it a mystery? Yes, sounds much better; and that's what I have for you here: a mystery. A mystery which I managed to resolve with a little perseverance, a soupçon of patience and my very best 'Columbo' style detective work. 

IF, and as you can see, it's a BIG if: But if you are wondering what that funny squiggle is underneath the letter 'c' in my word soupçon, I can tell you it's a cedilla. A cedilla is used under the letter c, especially in French, to indicate that the letter is pronounced as an 's'. 

Which begs the question, as cedilla is pronounced sedilla, why doesn't it have a cedilla?

Just another of life's many mysteries I guess? 

Anyhow, before I have to accuse myself of deviation, let's crack on with my mystery: here comes the photo...

My initial thought was this must be the work of a froghopper nymph. But the structure seemed different to me and what was visible inside, was the wrong colour for a froghopper. There are red and black froghoppers, but they do not make these bubbles. The only froghopper nymphs I have ever seen have been a  uniform, greenish-yellow. 

So...what could it be? I posted some photos to my Flickr site, and added them to a couple of groups in the hope of somebody with superior knowledge recognising them. (Did you notice how I did not use a letter z in recognise? I am no Prince Charles!) You might have to look that up about Charles using the letter z in his writings: but not now huh?

These are the other photographs...

I had a great response, with suggestions that it might be a spider, the eggs of a slug or snail, a couple of people thought it might be a beetle inside the foam, plant secretion, or sap that had trapped an insect. Somebody even enlarged my photo and then looked through a magnifying glass and thought it looked like a ladybird. 

Most of these are plausible suggestions. I set about researching via the internet. I trawled through pages and pages of images and text. I thumbed the pages of any relevant nature book from my own bookshelves. I was having no luck at all; in fact, I would have had more chance of finding a one-ended stick! 

I was starting to think that it must be a froghopper after all, as per my original thought. But they all look like this, don't they?

Philaenus spumarius nymph - Common froghopper

      

I had already returned to where I found this oddity to search for any clues, but decided a couple of days later to give it one more shot and this time, to widen my search a little. After a couple of hours of frankly, frustrating, furtive foraging, I was just thinking oh f..f..f..f..f....forget it! When I spotted something on a willow leaf that grabbed hold of my apathetically stricken body and delivered a defibrillator shock that re-energized (oops! a 'z') me to the point of being  totally cognizant (Bugger...another one!)

What was it that so piqued my interest?

 'Twas this...

Look at the area I have ringed in this cropped photo. It seems a damn good match for what I can see inside the froth of my mystery images...

But that looks like a tiny froghopper JJ? Yeah, it does doesn't it! Is that because it is a froghopper JJ, 'cos surely all froghopper nymphs are, what was it you said...a greenish-yellow? Well, in my experience, yes. 

It was at this point that a saying I had heard years ago sprung to mind: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”  In other words, why didn't I stick with my first thought, instead of dismissing it, making assumptions and complicating things?

Answer: Because I am an idiot! Bit harsh? Yeah, because actually I just wasn't aware of the fact that more than one species of hopper makes this froth/bubbles. Until now, everything I had seen, or indeed read, led me to believe that is was just the common froghopper that did so. 

Take a look at this great blog entry that I found though...

Froghopper nymph - aphrophora salicina

 To save you having to go poking about in the horrible froth to satisfy your curiosity, this is one I prepared earlier showing the back end of the nymph poking out. 

Incidentally if you are wondering WHY it is called Cuckoo Spit it is because in the past it was thought to have been produced by Cuckoos who arrived on migration at the same time the froth started to appear. Just coincidence.

There are many species of Froghopper nymph that produce the froth (though not the Black and Red Froghopper above) and if you are wondering what the Adults typically look like see my previous post here for an example.

This is a guy called Pete Smith, who on his excellent blog Focus On Wildlife in May 2011 wrote about this very subject, and he was way ahead of me in knowing that several species in fact produce these bubbles. 

OK...the point is that finding this information prompted me to check out the species of hopper in his blog entry and sure enough, Aphrophora salicina is associated with willow, which is where I found my bubbles.

And so I think I can announce without too much fear of contradiction...

This is the work of a little froghopper called Aphrophora salicina! 

Alright, so it turned out to be less exciting than I had hoped. But at least I did get to solve the puzzle and in the process gained some fresh knowledge, which is always a good thing. I am learning all the time.

Oh yes, the answer to my vegetable poser in my last update was melancholy. Only one person got the answer: well, only one communicated with me. But then I know how shy and reserved you all are.